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246.
I finished reading Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo. I haven't read any other books in this universe yet, so all of these thoughts and questions are from someone who only inhaled the Crows specific stuff. I've also combined my thoughts of both books together because I never bothered to write them down about SOC when I had finished.
I enjoyed the duology and felt that the stories and characters were a lot of fun. I enjoyed the writing most of the time. I particularly enjoyed how the characters worked together similarly to how Ocean's 11's characters did.
Here's my assortment of thoughts:
There is no way in hell these characters are 15-18. Every time this was mentioned, it threw me right out of the books. I personally prefer the physical appearances and ages of the Shadow and Bone actors. I think being in their 20s makes a lot of sense given their reputations and the fact that they're going up against men who are well-established, experienced, and most likely in their 40s-50s. Teens going up against grown-ass men was just too unbelievable for me. This is one of the few instances I felt the book's genre of being YA worked against it.
I can't believe Kaz Brekker is some reknowned Barrel leader at 17. I can believe it if he was 24. Personally, I view their ages as ranging from 21-27. I think Matthias would be the oldest with Wylan bringing up the rear as the youngest.
I understand this is merely a consequence of the genre, but YA really stifled the believability of this for me.
The multiple POVs worked well for SOC because the heist plot required everyone to be separated or at least in pairs. Everyone also had a specific purpose that only they could fulfil, ala Ocean's 11.
I don't believe this worked effectively for CK. It became very obvious to me how weak the character perspectives were as the characters became slaves to the plot. There were too many POVs, and I personally felt like a lot of them were useless and merged together.
One of the POVs I complained to a friend about was a moment in the auction was written in Matthias' POV. Matthias' POV established he had no connections with anyone—not the police, not Van Eck, not Rollins—and having this section written in his POV really undid any emotional weight. It became very obvious that the plot was pushing the characters along. Bardugo didn't do a good job in terms of weaving the characters in with the plot. The only people who seemed affected by the plot and the plan was Kaz, Inej and Jesper.
The chapter was poor against the other ones that were packed with emotion. There were no emotional stakes for Matthias. The chapter was merely telling, not showing, and was ineffective on an emotional level. Bardugo does this a lot in CK where she picks characters to be the POV because we haven't heard from them in some time and the POV ends up being extremely ineffective.
I think this chapter should've been from Kaz's POV. While he definitely knows a lot more than Bardugo wants the reader to know in the moment, she could've weaved in his cunning with some foreshadowing that made sense coming from his perspective. It would've been great to have a chapter dedicated to Kaz that was solely focused on his ability to read the room. (I got really tired of being told he could do this.)
Speaking of POVs, I didn't necessarily notice this in SOC because I felt that the emotional stakes were high and it was captured in the POVs, but for CK, I felt that a lot of the POVs were the same. A lot of them contained a lot of telling and a lot of the same language. Why would Matthias notice the same things as Nina in terms of architecture? He wouldn't.
I wish Bardugo had taken more time to tailor each POV to the character. Why didn't Wylan's POV equate anything to music? If Jesper is a Fabrikator, why didn't his POVs contain sensory details about the chemical matter of everything around him? Why didn't it have the POV of someone who is known as Sharpshooter? Nothing about his POV comes off particularly sharp. Why did Matthias' POV lack his military background? Surely, Matthias would have noticed things from a very militaristic perspective? Why was Inej's chapters—which were some of the strongest—lacking her noticing small details about the world around her? Why were Kaz's chapters not written in a more deliberate, cunning manner? I think Nina's could've been really effective if she had chapters in SOC that were very thick with imagery of life and beating hearts, and then in CK, her chapters struggled for her to feel life and capture the liveliness of being a Heartrender.
The number of POVs CK had was its undoing. Rachel Caine did this effectively with the Great Library series when she expanded the POVs from the MC. She had language tailoring to each character and really zeroed in on why this chapter had to be in their POV. I couldn't see that chapter written from anyone else's perspective because she really honed in on why that character had to be the one you experienced it with. (An alchemist's POV focused on energy. The engineer's POV focused on how things worked. The cunning thief's POV focused on him thinking quickly on his feet. The politician's POV was very politically focused with her learning how to play political chess.) Bardugo really didn't do this. At some points, I forgot who I was following, and this was also because of the point I made above—the wrong POV was selected for a lot of the scenes.
The only time I felt the POVs were effective was when Bardugo went into detail. Kaz being triggered back to being tossed into the canal and using his brother's dead body to stay afloat? Excellent imagery and character exploration. Inej's internal monologue giving fantastic and visceral detail of her life as an acrobat? Amazing. Why wasn't there more of this? Bardugo excels at the POVs when it's about emotional matter that she seems to care about and makes it clear that this chapter had to be this POV when she digs deep into a character's trauma. Imagine how great these POVs would've been if they were tailored to the character.
It really began to do my head in how Kaz was able to have his plans go so smoothly and everything worked in his favour. He's going up against experienced men, especially in the likes of Pekka Rollins, and yet he's able to easily outwit them? I understand that experience doesn't mean intelligence or any understanding of the game, but Rollins and Van Eck were posed as two very big and powerful players, and I felt like a lot of Kaz's scheming was too perfect. (This is also why I find it hard to believe his age.)
It also didn't help that Kaz's scheming happened off the page, too. Even if Bardugo didn't want to reveal Kaz's hand for shock factor, she didn't leave any breadcrumbs for it, either. Sometimes I felt like things came out of nowhere. While I particularly enjoyed Inej's ending, I wish that we had some inkling that Kaz was searching for her parents. It would've really upped the emotional stakes and given us something new in his perspective since I feel like Bardugo didn't exactly showcase how different people can have different interpretations of the one conversation. Imagine him asking Inej about them and she walks away feeling like Kaz thinks she's weak for looking back on her past while Kaz uses those details to track them down.
What I felt was effective in the Kaz and Inej conversations was how Inej walked away from a conversation with a different interpretation to Kaz. It would've been cool to see Kaz try to find out more about Inej's parents from her and Inej does not pick up on his motivations. The perspectives weren't very dynamic.
So, Kaz has been waiting for years to get revenge on Rollins for Jordie… and when we get there… he doesn't even say his name? I think it was so effective to show how we don't understand how we can impact other people through this relationship, and I found myself very curious to see if Rollins remembered Jordie. It was so impactful when he didn't. But I didn't understand why Kaz didn't say something like "My name is Kaz Rietveld, you killed my brother, prepare to die."
I think Kaz should've mentioned Jordie's name so his brother's name would haunt Rollins for the rest of his life. I felt there was no closure there. Kaz has been holding onto this for so long, had such a grand speech… and it fell flat. Wouldn't you want Rollins to remember that name? Wouldn't you want to see this man beg and pretend he remembered Jordie the moment Kaz said his name? I think it would've been so cool for Kaz to reveal his surname is Rietveld and have it come full circle that the Rietveld boys were the ones who destroyed Rollins, not Kaz Brekker.
Matthias' death was absolute garbage lol. His entire chapter was so phoned in. He ends up coming across this little Fjerdan boy who clearly wants to kill him, and Matthias' internal dialogue is "He can still be reached." (I swear, that's one of the lines!) Not once does he seem to struggle with coming face to face with this young soldier. Not once do you have him try and play his cards right and pretend that he's really not a deserter. For someone who has done so much to survive, Matthias was really, really stupid in the end. Surely, as a wanted man, Matthias would know the Fjerdans want to kill him and he should try his best to manipulate them as he did Brum? (Why wouldn't Kaz take the Fjerdans being in Ketterdam into account and ensure Matthias' safety?)
I did find Nina's chapter and Matthias' last one were very effective. I do always cry when a character dies and others grant them peace and permission to leave. But I felt those two chapters weren't deserving of the chapter that had the inciting event. It was just so unemotional.
I also disagree with Bardugo's choice to kill Matthias. You wanted his younger self to kill him, thereby inadvertently conveying the message that you can change, learn as a person and better yourself and, in the end, it doesn't matter because your prejudices will always win? Matthias is a survivor who adapts. This as a bizarre choice from Bardugo imo.
She also claimed she had nowhere to take his story which is a bit strange to me. It's because he was given absolutely nothing to do! It would've been good to see Matthias struggle more with the culture. Why didn't he offer more militaristic advice? Why wasn't he there with Zoya and Genya and Sturmhond where I'm sure they could see his value for their side of the war? You could've had Nina and Matthias go to Ravka to work with Nikolai and the Triumvirate to bully Fjerda into submission. Wouldn't they find it useful to have someone who understands how the Fjerdan military and Grisha hunters work on their side? Is that not why Kaz needed Matthias for the Ice Court in the first place? (Yes, he's in a very dangerous political position, but ??? HE IS AN ASSET.)
I thought Matthias was fascinating. He could've at least have gone to Fjerda to find Trass, ffs.
Inej's sexual abuse is so gravely and disgustingly side-swept. I understand that this is because of the genre of the book, but if you're not going to explore it, then don't include it in your story.
I disliked that Kaz swept her trauma under the rug when she explained that she flinches when Jesper touches her and that she's afraid of seeing her clients on the streets. I hate that we never SEE Inej flinch in her chapters or in someone else's. While I absolutely love the "I want you without armour" line, it feels very unearned. Inej is a series of contradictions that I feel are very, very real. I imagine someone in her position would struggle to regain her agency, and within that struggle, Inej is asking a boy who fears touch to touch her because she wants her body to be hers again. But then she says she wants to disappear and doesn't like being touched. While the nuances of that contradiction are there, Bardugo does nothing with it.
Even though she could easily be in denial, Bardugo doesn't do a good job in allowing Inej's trauma to stand up against Kaz's. It's almost like only one person can be traumatised, and so it's the white man over the woman of colour. Inej is traumatised. Inej was trafficked. Inej was raped. Inej had her sense of self stripped from her. Yet, while I definitely believe she is the strongest character emotionally, I really, really loathe that Bardugo didn't include minor details like her flinching when Jesper hugs her, her flinching when Nina touches her, etc.
Why does Nina always dress up in scanty clothes? Did she and Inej have an agreement that Inej would never do this? How does Inej feel seeing Nina play that role? Inej's trauma is like throwing a rock into a lake but the lake's surface doesn't ripple. It's unrealistic.
I don't understand Jesper's restlessness being the result of him not using his Fabrikator abilities. Doesn't he use them often? Doesn't he shoot a lot of shit? Doesn't he use them for other things that aren't guiding bullets? Surely he would? Why would he be so restless he gambles?
I wish that we had separated his Grisha abilities from his clear gambling addiction. It sends a convoluted message to an extent… Like I can see the correlation between talent and impulse control, but, again, I don't think it was explored properly at all.
I loved Jesper's backstory and Colm's refusal to allow Jesper to learn how to use his abilities in fear that he'll be taken from him like his mother was. Even though we didn't get to see a lot of their relationship (which is unfortunate), it was so, so good. It really added a mature element to Jesper's often fun character, and I really like how Colm accepted his son for who he was.
I really grew to like Wylan and Wylan/Jesper in CK. (I didn't like him or them in SOC.) He's a sweet kid who really got to show his ability to adapt. I did appreciate that when it was revealed by Van Eck that Wylan couldn't read, the people he was sharing this with were disgusted by his claims. I would like to think that they would be disgusted by Van Eck's disgust at it, tbh. I think it's really important that if you're going to include a character with dyslexia and have a key character in that character's life disparage and bully them over that, that you come full circle with people accepting the character with dyslexia and disparaging the claims of their bully.
"If I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you."
HOW DOES NO ONE REALISE THAT KAZ RIETVELD IS IN LOVE WITH INEJ GHAFA?
Ngl, I dig it when the stoic, rough, untouchable and unemotional character is so head over heels simping for another and the character of their affection doesn't even know it. Everything about Kaz/Inej hit the right buttons for me. I love that she stood up to him. I love that she was always there for him. I love that she saw through his bullshit. I love that she demanded her worth from him. I love that Kaz let himself be vulnerable with her.
The bathroom scene was everything everyone hyped it up to be, although, I did dislike how Kaz didn't once acknowledge Inej's confess she's triggered by touch. That was a grave oversight by Bardugo.
WHY IS IT THAT INEJ GETS HURT AND THEN NO ONE MENTIONS IT LATER? The incinerator burns. Her being cut up by Boring-Dullyasha. HER BEING KIDNAPPED BY VAN ECK. (Surely, that should've been triggering??)
PIRATE KING INEJ!!!!!
Let's not talk about the White Blade of Beige. That was a dumb subplot.
Kuwei had the most to lose, yet he wasn't even a character in his own arc. He shows no emotion when he says goodbye to everyone and sets sail to Ravka. All he does is hit on Jesper and that's that.
Does fandom even talk about how racist it is for a white character to wear a POC's face? Did no one else find it a bit strange how that was the narrative choice? Wylan wearing Kuwei's face serviced a white man's narrative over a man of colour's imo.
I did cry at Inej's happiness at seeing her parents again. I WANTED TO READ THAT REUNION, DAMN IT.
But where is her brother?
I enjoyed the books and would definitely read them again, even if my notes above may suggest otherwise. (The fact I wrote so much criticising it shows that I care!) I read SOC really quickly which is an unusual pace for me. SOC was the better book pacing, plot and structure-wise for me, while CK had greater character moments when Bardugo allowed them. I personally felt CK was better for Inej, Jesper, Wylan, and even Kaz, although I felt like Matthias and Nina didn't change at all. I enjoy how both books end with Pekka's POV—I thought that was some great symmetry. I definitely think this story is unfinished.
I'm going to be busy looking for fic to scratch so many itches because these books left a lot of things unwrapped for me imo. And I'll definitely be busy writing some, too. I really hope the show does better in conveying a lot of what Bardugo left either feeling emotionless or very "wtf, how did that happen!?"
I enjoyed the duology and felt that the stories and characters were a lot of fun. I enjoyed the writing most of the time. I particularly enjoyed how the characters worked together similarly to how Ocean's 11's characters did.
Here's my assortment of thoughts:
I can't believe Kaz Brekker is some reknowned Barrel leader at 17. I can believe it if he was 24. Personally, I view their ages as ranging from 21-27. I think Matthias would be the oldest with Wylan bringing up the rear as the youngest.
I understand this is merely a consequence of the genre, but YA really stifled the believability of this for me.
I don't believe this worked effectively for CK. It became very obvious to me how weak the character perspectives were as the characters became slaves to the plot. There were too many POVs, and I personally felt like a lot of them were useless and merged together.
One of the POVs I complained to a friend about was a moment in the auction was written in Matthias' POV. Matthias' POV established he had no connections with anyone—not the police, not Van Eck, not Rollins—and having this section written in his POV really undid any emotional weight. It became very obvious that the plot was pushing the characters along. Bardugo didn't do a good job in terms of weaving the characters in with the plot. The only people who seemed affected by the plot and the plan was Kaz, Inej and Jesper.
The chapter was poor against the other ones that were packed with emotion. There were no emotional stakes for Matthias. The chapter was merely telling, not showing, and was ineffective on an emotional level. Bardugo does this a lot in CK where she picks characters to be the POV because we haven't heard from them in some time and the POV ends up being extremely ineffective.
I think this chapter should've been from Kaz's POV. While he definitely knows a lot more than Bardugo wants the reader to know in the moment, she could've weaved in his cunning with some foreshadowing that made sense coming from his perspective. It would've been great to have a chapter dedicated to Kaz that was solely focused on his ability to read the room. (I got really tired of being told he could do this.)
I wish Bardugo had taken more time to tailor each POV to the character. Why didn't Wylan's POV equate anything to music? If Jesper is a Fabrikator, why didn't his POVs contain sensory details about the chemical matter of everything around him? Why didn't it have the POV of someone who is known as Sharpshooter? Nothing about his POV comes off particularly sharp. Why did Matthias' POV lack his military background? Surely, Matthias would have noticed things from a very militaristic perspective? Why was Inej's chapters—which were some of the strongest—lacking her noticing small details about the world around her? Why were Kaz's chapters not written in a more deliberate, cunning manner? I think Nina's could've been really effective if she had chapters in SOC that were very thick with imagery of life and beating hearts, and then in CK, her chapters struggled for her to feel life and capture the liveliness of being a Heartrender.
The number of POVs CK had was its undoing. Rachel Caine did this effectively with the Great Library series when she expanded the POVs from the MC. She had language tailoring to each character and really zeroed in on why this chapter had to be in their POV. I couldn't see that chapter written from anyone else's perspective because she really honed in on why that character had to be the one you experienced it with. (An alchemist's POV focused on energy. The engineer's POV focused on how things worked. The cunning thief's POV focused on him thinking quickly on his feet. The politician's POV was very politically focused with her learning how to play political chess.) Bardugo really didn't do this. At some points, I forgot who I was following, and this was also because of the point I made above—the wrong POV was selected for a lot of the scenes.
It also didn't help that Kaz's scheming happened off the page, too. Even if Bardugo didn't want to reveal Kaz's hand for shock factor, she didn't leave any breadcrumbs for it, either. Sometimes I felt like things came out of nowhere. While I particularly enjoyed Inej's ending, I wish that we had some inkling that Kaz was searching for her parents. It would've really upped the emotional stakes and given us something new in his perspective since I feel like Bardugo didn't exactly showcase how different people can have different interpretations of the one conversation. Imagine him asking Inej about them and she walks away feeling like Kaz thinks she's weak for looking back on her past while Kaz uses those details to track them down.
What I felt was effective in the Kaz and Inej conversations was how Inej walked away from a conversation with a different interpretation to Kaz. It would've been cool to see Kaz try to find out more about Inej's parents from her and Inej does not pick up on his motivations. The perspectives weren't very dynamic.
I think Kaz should've mentioned Jordie's name so his brother's name would haunt Rollins for the rest of his life. I felt there was no closure there. Kaz has been holding onto this for so long, had such a grand speech… and it fell flat. Wouldn't you want Rollins to remember that name? Wouldn't you want to see this man beg and pretend he remembered Jordie the moment Kaz said his name? I think it would've been so cool for Kaz to reveal his surname is Rietveld and have it come full circle that the Rietveld boys were the ones who destroyed Rollins, not Kaz Brekker.
I did find Nina's chapter and Matthias' last one were very effective. I do always cry when a character dies and others grant them peace and permission to leave. But I felt those two chapters weren't deserving of the chapter that had the inciting event. It was just so unemotional.
I also disagree with Bardugo's choice to kill Matthias. You wanted his younger self to kill him, thereby inadvertently conveying the message that you can change, learn as a person and better yourself and, in the end, it doesn't matter because your prejudices will always win? Matthias is a survivor who adapts. This as a bizarre choice from Bardugo imo.
She also claimed she had nowhere to take his story which is a bit strange to me. It's because he was given absolutely nothing to do! It would've been good to see Matthias struggle more with the culture. Why didn't he offer more militaristic advice? Why wasn't he there with Zoya and Genya and Sturmhond where I'm sure they could see his value for their side of the war? You could've had Nina and Matthias go to Ravka to work with Nikolai and the Triumvirate to bully Fjerda into submission. Wouldn't they find it useful to have someone who understands how the Fjerdan military and Grisha hunters work on their side? Is that not why Kaz needed Matthias for the Ice Court in the first place? (Yes, he's in a very dangerous political position, but ??? HE IS AN ASSET.)
I thought Matthias was fascinating. He could've at least have gone to Fjerda to find Trass, ffs.
I disliked that Kaz swept her trauma under the rug when she explained that she flinches when Jesper touches her and that she's afraid of seeing her clients on the streets. I hate that we never SEE Inej flinch in her chapters or in someone else's. While I absolutely love the "I want you without armour" line, it feels very unearned. Inej is a series of contradictions that I feel are very, very real. I imagine someone in her position would struggle to regain her agency, and within that struggle, Inej is asking a boy who fears touch to touch her because she wants her body to be hers again. But then she says she wants to disappear and doesn't like being touched. While the nuances of that contradiction are there, Bardugo does nothing with it.
Even though she could easily be in denial, Bardugo doesn't do a good job in allowing Inej's trauma to stand up against Kaz's. It's almost like only one person can be traumatised, and so it's the white man over the woman of colour. Inej is traumatised. Inej was trafficked. Inej was raped. Inej had her sense of self stripped from her. Yet, while I definitely believe she is the strongest character emotionally, I really, really loathe that Bardugo didn't include minor details like her flinching when Jesper hugs her, her flinching when Nina touches her, etc.
Why does Nina always dress up in scanty clothes? Did she and Inej have an agreement that Inej would never do this? How does Inej feel seeing Nina play that role? Inej's trauma is like throwing a rock into a lake but the lake's surface doesn't ripple. It's unrealistic.
I wish that we had separated his Grisha abilities from his clear gambling addiction. It sends a convoluted message to an extent… Like I can see the correlation between talent and impulse control, but, again, I don't think it was explored properly at all.
HOW DOES NO ONE REALISE THAT KAZ RIETVELD IS IN LOVE WITH INEJ GHAFA?
Ngl, I dig it when the stoic, rough, untouchable and unemotional character is so head over heels simping for another and the character of their affection doesn't even know it. Everything about Kaz/Inej hit the right buttons for me. I love that she stood up to him. I love that she was always there for him. I love that she saw through his bullshit. I love that she demanded her worth from him. I love that Kaz let himself be vulnerable with her.
The bathroom scene was everything everyone hyped it up to be, although, I did dislike how Kaz didn't once acknowledge Inej's confess she's triggered by touch. That was a grave oversight by Bardugo.
Does fandom even talk about how racist it is for a white character to wear a POC's face? Did no one else find it a bit strange how that was the narrative choice? Wylan wearing Kuwei's face serviced a white man's narrative over a man of colour's imo.
But where is her brother?
I enjoyed the books and would definitely read them again, even if my notes above may suggest otherwise. (The fact I wrote so much criticising it shows that I care!) I read SOC really quickly which is an unusual pace for me. SOC was the better book pacing, plot and structure-wise for me, while CK had greater character moments when Bardugo allowed them. I personally felt CK was better for Inej, Jesper, Wylan, and even Kaz, although I felt like Matthias and Nina didn't change at all. I enjoy how both books end with Pekka's POV—I thought that was some great symmetry. I definitely think this story is unfinished.
I'm going to be busy looking for fic to scratch so many itches because these books left a lot of things unwrapped for me imo. And I'll definitely be busy writing some, too. I really hope the show does better in conveying a lot of what Bardugo left either feeling emotionless or very "wtf, how did that happen!?"